The Return of Miike Snow

In the winter of 2009 while I lurked the Coachella Message Boards looking for the latest news about who would be playing at my first Coachella. I came across a killer Swedish indie-pop group by the name of Miike Snow. I listened to “Animal” and “Black & Blue” for four months faithfully and they were completely on the ‘Must-See’ list as we left for the festival on April 15th.

Of course, as any Coachella vet can tell you, things don’t always go as planned. It wasn’t that I chose not to see them or that I got lost in the Sahara Tent with mau5 for 3 days, I just straight up forgot they were even playing.

The Mau5

For the next 4 months I would totally hate on the Miike Snow crew because I’d missed out, but I’d get a shot at redemption in August. After my three boys and I had spent the summer living in Port Douglas, AU with my moms we headed down south to Sydney for some partying before going home.

Typically the day that we get there, my girlfriend at the time (who was studying abroad in Spain) misplaced her phone in an unplanned, but completely unavoidable drinking accident. Like any boyfriend with no way to talk to his girlfriend who was partying in the party capital of Europe, I wasn’t stoked — totally took the ‘rager’ outta me.

Summer 2010 Port Douglas QLD

It came back real quick though once we found out that Miike Snow would be playing at a small venue in a hipster area of Sydney. A whole eight months after I started listening to them in preparation for Coachella, I got to see Miike Snow absolutely kill it down under. The set was short, but these guys brought the entire venue down. To this day I can’t believe that an indie-pop band can bring the noise like they do.

After doing the international festival circuit in 2010, Miike Snow took last year off to focus on their upcoming sophomore album, Happy to You. With high-profile EDM artists like Wolfgang Gartner collaborating with them, it looks like we can expect a lot of Snow this summer. Released yesterday, the remix embedded below of Miike Snow’s latest single reminded me why I first fell in love with three Swedish guys who sing in English over dirty electro-indie beats.

Paddling Out (Wolfgang Gartner Remix) by miikesnow

Check the Coachella Line up poster from 2010 to 2012 and you can see that the music industry has pegged Miike Snow for a big summer. If you are on the fence about seeing these guys at an upcoming festival or if you have the chance to see them, you’d be doing your musical intellect a serious disservice by not going.